Ambassador Lin, ladies and gentlemen.
It is a very great pleasure for me, as the British government’s trade envoy to Taiwan, to be able to say a few words at this splendid event this afternoon.
I am delighted that the creative industries sector in Taiwan is thriving as a result of increased support from your government, as well as growing interest in culture and the arts amongst the people. I am keen that the United Kingdom should be considered as one of Taiwan’s preferred cultural partners.
In recent years my colleagues in the British Office in Taipei have been promoting our artistic productions in collaboration with sectors of digital innovation and creative technology. The UK has also been recognised as a leader in the area of arts and inclusion, covering work in disability arts, and helping to present marginalized voices such as LGBT and indigenous communities.
Our aim over the next three to five years is to do what we can to help the arts and cultural sector in Taiwan play its part in building a more open, prosperous, inclusive and diverse society.
The UK, via the British Council, has a strong cultural connection with Kaohsiung. Since 2015, we have supported the Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival to invite theatre companies well-received at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to showcase innovative productions of puppetry and cinematic technology and to open the audience’s horizon to contemporary British theatre works. “
Since 2017, we have partnered with the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts to host the international museum academy training programme to 150 practitioners from contemporary arts, history and science museums from around Taiwan. In the 3-day programme, Marcus Horley from the Tate, Serpentine Pavilion architect Asif Kahn and Claire Dobbins from the KCA Museum consultancy presented their ideas for audience engagement from the perspectives of programme, community and space to the conference and workshop participants as well as joining them for the local museum visits in central and southern Taiwan for a lively exchange of learning from each other.
In 2018, to enhance the knowledge and exchange on Design and Ageing, we co-organised with the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, the premiere of “New Old” exhibition by the London Design Museum in East Asia from January to April this year. The exhibition stimulated a lively debate and enormous interest among care, design, arts, engineering and architecture sectors to investigate how we prepare and design for when we all become old people.
The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts will also be hosting Tate’s “Nude” Exhibition later this year. Kaohsiung will be the only stop in Taiwan of this touring exhibition, which also includes stops in Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
I am really looking forward to hearing about your new National Performing Arts Centre in the wonderful city of Kaohsiung, and to visiting it the next time I am in Taiwan. Many many congratulations!